In the first part of my opening statement, I noted I hadn't changed weight in 8 years and that it has only been since June that I have been doing this vigorous exercise routine...sooooooo how does this fit in with the input-output theory?

The energy for the additional exercise you've engaged in must have come from somewhere. Do you expect to drive your automobile an additional distance without consuming additional petrol?

Moderate exercise by itself is not considered a particularly effective way of losing weight because the amount of additional energy consumed during, say, a half-hour's walk may be provided by one bottle of coke, or one can of beer, or one glass of milk or orange juice which one may take in order to quench one's thirst as a result of having gone for a walk.

When people start an exercise routine, their appetite usually increases and they tend to take in additional food and drink in lots of subtle ways. Unless you're on a very strict and simple diet and meticulously weigh every scrap of food or drink you take throughout the day, and analyse it for its calorific content, you probably wouldn't be aware that you were eating or drinking more as a result of increased exercise.

When I was first informed there was a high possibility I was a type 2 diabetic, I was told I needed to lose weight as that was one of the worst offenders in controlling one's blood-sugar. I am always a great follower of doctor's orders so I immediately embarked on a weight loss regimen consisting of limiting my sugars, drinking only water (which I still do to this day) and walking pretty vigorously every day. I went from 216 to 189 lbs in three months.

When the diagnosis was confirmed, I was sent to a group of diabetes specialists who put me on the carb intake diet I described earlier. I do not deviate from this diet enough to count. I get blood work taken every three months measuring my AH1C and in eight years it has never varied by more than one tenth of a point (5.6 or 5.7) and my weight has been a steady 191, 192 lbs.

Life got in the way of the hard core exercise routine but because I never wanted to go on the diabtes control meds, I was (am) exceptionally diligent in my sugar counting. I agree, you can only get some many miles out of a liter of petrol but you can stretch those miles by changing tyres, waxing the car, living in an area with fewer hills or go hybrid.

So, here I am, back to the hard core exercise, counting the same sugar intake, still only drinking water, living in a quite flat environ, a lot less hair (wind resistance) and I neither gain nor lose weight but I am changing mass. I'll let you know in three months where I am as per weight, etc. I suspect because of my age, my metabolic comsumption rate is being altered and in time I will even out and the pounds will start to melt away. My goal is to get from 191 to 171 lbs.

As an aside, for a man my age living in the US, my combined cholesterol is 97, my triglycerides are 128 mg/dl, my BP is 110/68, pulse at rest 60. My cardiologist says no visit for 8 years, gastroenterologist 6 years, urologist 5 years. For age 66, these are damn good numbers. I take one pill a day to control my heart rate but take a pediatric dose (a hieritary condition). I haven't had a headache in so long, I honestly cannot remember when it was. I've never had the flu or flu-like symptoms and I never get the shots. I don't smoke (though I once did) and rarely consume alcohol.

Ta-ta for now.

« Last Edit: October 21, 2012, 08:35:56 AM by chrisc »

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If it Ain't Broke, Leave it Alone; if it is Broke, Fix it; if it's a Maybe, Play With it - Who Knows

Around seven years ago when I was overweight, I went from 92kgs to 82kgs in 3 weeks. I achieved this by walking in the Himalayas everyday, almost all day long. The combination of unappetising food and the occasional first signs of altitude sickness (which are a loss of appetite), also helped.

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...and I neither gain nor lose weight but I am changing mass...

I presume that you mean your ratio of muscle to fat changes but not your overall weight? As I understand, weight is the result of the effects of gravity on a specific mass. If you increase or decrease your mass, you also increase or decrease your weight to the same degree, unless you fly to the moon where you will definitely weigh much less, but your mass will remain the same.

I appreciate the fact that different individuals have different metabolic rates and that not everyone will put on weight to the same degree when overeating by the same amount. I made that point initially many posts ago. I also appreciate that drugs and medication can change one's metabolic rate and body chemistry, so that without changing one's diet by one iota, nor the amount of exercise one takes, one could theoretically either put on weight or lose weight.

However, putting on weight as a result of overeating is a normal and healthy state of affairs. It would have provided an evolutionary advantage in the past to carry a person through the lean times. Those who were not able to put on weight during times of plenty would have had less chance of surviving during periods of drought.

The point I've been making is that one cannot become overweight or obese without overeating, but some people like to kid themselves that they are not overeating when they start to put on weight after some change to their metabolism or body chemistry has taken place. What is really happening is that such changes to their metabolism have revealed that they were always overeating but didn't realise it.

The bottom line is, excess body weight can only result from an intake of excess food, whatever one's metabolic rate. Modern science is a wonderful thing, but we haven't yet discovered how to make something from nothing.

If a human were able to put on weight without overeating, such a miracle would be of great interest to agricultural scientists. Farmers might be able to apply the same technique when feeding their livestock and make more profit.

Also would agree with your argument that you can't get fat if you don't overeat...and agree there is far to active a trend toward obesity...of course the bright side to that is those people won't be able to catch the skinny people stealing their surplus of food when it all comes crashing down.

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If it Ain't Broke, Leave it Alone; if it is Broke, Fix it; if it's a Maybe, Play With it - Who Knows

Most threads deviate from their original post pretty quickly. However I feel that weight loss and gain wasn't anywhere relevant to the original. Perhaps the two interested parties can continue the discussion via private messages and leave the rest of us to bitch about politics which has some relevance to the original post?

Stamper says Ray and my running commentary on caloric intake had no relevance to the original thread. I hate to break it to you, Stamper but none of this had much relevance to Mitt Romney having a photoshopped halo. Frankly, I think most of the ones involved in this thread simply like a good fight and they have enough historical fact to prove bathroom tissue is the driving force of socialism or democracy.

I am sure at some point during all this political discourse there was a point; the point was made after a fashion or several and it is at this point this thread should have died a day after the election day death....one big sigh.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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If it Ain't Broke, Leave it Alone; if it is Broke, Fix it; if it's a Maybe, Play With it - Who Knows

I could only get excited about this whole exercise if it were truly the the president who ran the country but since there are so many different and opposing groups all with billions to spend on lobbying and buying off politicians I think the place has become pretty much ungovernable, and that's before we even mention the influence of the oil and arms industries.

Well - I am not sure if it ever aspired to be the useful variety of Lula thread, although I have to confess that it did prompt me to read the US Constitution for the first time (an impressive document, BTW), and that I am still puzzling over how it is possible to rationally believe that something which the Supreme Court has unambiguously held to be constitutional is in fact unconstitutional.

As for interest, its continued survival is not without interest, with the attempts at putting it out of its misery only prolonging its life.

Ken, It's extermely rare for a Supreme Court decision to be unambiguous, and there are several cases where what was once found to be constitutional is later deemed unconstitutional, sometimes, as in Dred Scott, and as Jeremy pointed out, by changes in the Constitution itself, and sometimes, as in Plessy v. Ferguson, by a later decision (Brown v. Board) that makes the original decision moot.

But the Supreme Court isn't the only branch of government that can interpret the constitution. Probably the most famous contretemps between the Court and the President was when, after the supreme court decision in Worcester v. Georgia, Andrew Jackson said,: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Marshall, the chief justice, couldn't enforce the decision without the help of executive branch headed by Jackson. But in the long run the decision established the doctrine that the federal government rather than the states has authority in Indian affairs.

...there are several cases where what was once found to be constitutional is later deemed unconstitutional...

Thanks for the clarifications, Russ. My difficulty was that the Constitution seemed to say that what the Supreme Court finds to be constitutional at any point in time is, in the only meaning for which it (the Constitution) provides, constitutional - but to not exclude the possibility that might change - along the lines of your sentence as modified above. I guess the difference is semantic. Your later point about implementation seems to belong in a different discussion.

I think Jeremy gave the best explanation of how the change happens, Ken, with his point that though Plessy said that it was all right to have separate but equal schools, Brown decided that separate couldn't possibly be equal. Yes, you can argue that Brown didn't reverse Plessy, but, the argument is a distinction without a difference, or, as you put it, the difference is semantic. The bottom line is that a supreme court decision isn't always the final word. Some decisions are reversed, even though the Court won't admit that's what happened.

This discussion about whether a Supreme Court decision determines if something is constitutional reminds me of the recent, infamous Seattle Ė Green Bay football game, where the replacement refs blew the last second call, giving the game to Seattle. Even the NFL acknowledged that the call was wrong, but said that Seattleís win was final. Now, if you bet on Green Bay and tried to avoid paying off your bookie by claiming that Green Bay was the real winner, your bookie might prove you wrong by breaking your legs!

When the Supreme Court makes a ruling, then thatís it, period. Thatís the current law of the land. Arguing that the Supreme Court may in the future reverse the decision, or that the Constitution may be amended, is a red herring, itís irrelevant.

To argue that the Supreme Courtís ruling is not the law would be to advocate the abolishment of the rule of law. If every person could decide for themselves what is constitutional or lawful, then we wouldnít have the rule of law. We wouldnít have a civilized society as we know it.

There are of course a lot of Supreme Court decisions that a lot of people disagree with. Even the Justices often canít agree, hence a lot of 5-4 decisions. But once a decision is made, thatís it. So, when someone says that something is or is not constitutional, contrary to an explicit Supreme Court decision, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that what they really mean is that they disagree with the decision. Of course there will always be a few irrational wing nuts out there who really do mean what they say, but I doubt that there are many.

I don't think one can blame one's genes for being overweight, Russ. Whilst it's true that what we are is essentially an interaction between our genes and learned behaviour, the learned behaviour aspect has far more to do with being overweight than any specific genetic condition, though there will always be exceptions.

The essential problem is that most of us are victims of the food industry and its clever advertising. For most people, I would say that the two main priorities when choosing a food to eat is Appearance and Taste. You can change the order if you like, but it doesn't make much difference.

For some of us, and I'm one of them, the first priority is Nutrition, then Taste, and Appearance last.

What is essentially happening, in my very arrogant opinion, is that the food industry is lacing all its processed foods with huge amounts of sugar to improve the taste. Just recently when deciding whether or not to choose a particular brand of Baked Beans in a supermarket, which had an attractive price tag, I checked the list of ingredients on the label, and discovered to my amazement that the sugar content was 20%. Beans! 20% sugar! That's ridiculous!

The problem is not so much that sugar provides lots of energy and causes one to put on weight if one doesn't exercise it off. The problem is far more devious.Firstly, there's increasing scientific evidence that sugar is an addictive substance.

Secondly, there's increasing scientific evidence that excessive amounts of sugar interfere with the neurotransmitter processes that inform the brain that a person has eaten enough and is full.

People who are concerned about their weight may takes steps to cut down on sugar, such as refraining from adding sugar to their coffee and cutting down on the number of icecreams and chocolates they consume.

However, the real problem is the hidden sugar in all the processed food we buy. People get fat because they don't know when they are full. They keep eating, despite being full, because the food is very tasty and they don't get any sensation that they are full because of that interference of sugar in the brain processes.

It's a very clever strategy the food industry is employing, even if it may not be aware of the scientific basis of its strategy.

Why don't most people put nutrition first when choosing a food to eat? Here I'll get back to the subject of photography and use a photographic analogy.

To put nutrition first, one has to have a certain amount of knowledge and understanding of what nutritious means. I don't recall attending any class at school on nutrition.

Most people's understanding of nutrition is analagous to most people's understanding of photography. Most people use P&S cameras or iPhones which have preprogrammed effects to produce a pleasing result, like a processed food.

Those of us who are serious about photography, learn about image resolution, accutance, dynamic range, noise, color fidelity etc, and we search for these qualities in the cameras we buy.

Likewise, those who are serious about their weight and health, learn about the health-promoting qualities of the foods they buy and eat.

No, Ray, below is a photo of one of our more famous constitutional wingnuts, Wesley Snipes. Wesley didnít pay his taxes, claiming that the federal income tax was unconstitutional. While the government didnít prove him wrong by breaking his legs, it did make him an offer he couldnít refuse -- a stay in federal prison.

Perhaps once Wesley finally gets out of prison heíll have a better understanding of the difference between what is in fact constitutional and what he believes is constitutional.